Clean Energy: Wanted Everywhere But In The Latest G20 Text
The G20 leaders conference has wound down
to a disappointing close in Canada,
failing to build on last year’s commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and downgrading mentions of clean energy from eight mentions in their Pittsburgh communiqué to none from over the border in Toronto. Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
Sustainable economic recovery will need more than brief platitudes about green recovery, WWF warned on noting the lack of significant commitments on climate change, climate finance or even the G20-nominated issue of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.
“The world leaders are still painting the economy in black and white. But the 21st century economy must include green,” said Kim Carstensen, the leader of WWF’s Global Climate Initiative.
“The greenest thing about the G20 is its ability to reuse and recycle earlier commitments. This summit could have been the beginning of real action towards a clean, efficient and resilient economy but all we got is some nice words about green economy and a recycled statement on fossil fuel subsidies”
At the 2009 Pittsburgh G20 summit leaders committed to “Rationalize and phase out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption”.
“This year’s G20 Statement repeats this commitment, and leaders “…encourage continued and full implementation of country-specific strategies and will continue to review progress towards this commitment.”
Carstensen said, “Reforming fossil fuel subsidies is an obvious win-win solution for the environment and the economy, and it is encouraging that the issue will remain on the G20 agenda. But in Canada the leaders failed to take the next step to indicate their global level of ambition and agree a clear timeline to achieve what they promise.”